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Monday, May 2, 2011

For this Recipe, the Devil Was in the Details

I had an interesting experience creating my deviled eggs recipe. On my first try, I put a dozen cold eggs in cold water, which took a while to come to a boil. Once they did, I turned off the heat and let them sit in the hot water with the cover on for 30 minutes. Then I shocked them in an ice bath.

I completely over-cooked the eggs.

They were almost impossible to peel. The thin membrane between the shell and egg stuck to the whites and I destroyed the first ten I tried to peel. By that point, I was too mad to try the remaining two eggs. They were tossed into the waste basket much like a player in the NFL spikes a football after scoring a touchdown.

Thankfully, in the end, I got it right. What I came up with, after some research, is step one of the recipe.

THE COLUMN
This is one of my favorite introductions. The Easter egg/deviled egg observation is a nice start and the description of eating a deviled egg like a humongous tic-tac is a guilty pleasure that some of my readers really related to. The picture in the corner of all twelve eggs before plating is a little small and some of the detail gets lost, but other than than I'm happy with the layout and visual presentation of the recipe itself.

FINAL THOUGHT
After years of gourmet cooking and many hours working to becoming a better cook, I had to learn to hardboil an egg. I really hadn't done that since the days of coloring them as a kid for Easter. A food writer learning how to boil eggs...life always finds little ways to humble us.